Tyler Le/Insider
Cinda Larimer was delivering newspapers on a cool November morning in Paradise, California, when she noticed something softly float down from the sky: ash.
"I knew that was bad," she told me. "That's when I called my work and said I gotta go." She had survived four previous fires in Paradise, which sits in the foothills about 90 miles north of Sacramento, so she had her routine down: She grabbed some essentials and piled into her minivan with her boyfriend, 17-year-old godson, four cats, turtle, and dog. The Camp Fire engulfed her town that day in 2018 — 85 of her neighbors died. Larimer's rented trailer home burned to the ground, forcing her family to convert their minivan into a new home.